Today I’m delighted to be taking part in the blog tour for The Blue Bench by Paul Marriner, a story that is especially poignant in this, the 100th anniversary since … Continue reading The Blue Bench by Paul Marriner
The brilliant new novel from the author of Hold Back The Stars
Thea and Isaac were close, but they’ve grown apart.
Thea world tirelessly, convinced that she can prove everyone around her wrong – convinced she can prove that time travel is possible. But when her latest attempts goes awry, she finds herself picking up the phone and calling her old friend.
Issac is in New York – it’s the middle of the night, but when he sees who’s calling him, he cannot ignore his phone. At Thea’s request, he travels home, determined to help her in her hour of need.
But neither of them are prepared for what they will discover when he gets there.
The Light Between Usis a story of second chances and time travel. It begs the dangerous question that we all ask ourselves – what could have been? “
Katie’s novels are completely unique. They are love stories that are complex with plots that are smart, thought-provoking and brave. She makes us question the reality that surrounds us and just how far love can take us.
The Light Between Us is a story about love, yes, but it is also about the choices and actions we take and the effect they have on the world around us. There is also a very powerful message about mis-understanding, lack of communication and jumping to conclusions.
I don’t want to go into too much detail about the story as I wouldn’t want to give anything away. I thoroughly enjoyed discovering as I read and I urge you to do the same. This is science fiction slap bang in the here and now, totally relatable and current. The writing as always is brilliantly sharp. Setting, character and place are brought to life wonderfully; there is also adventure, danger and of course a love story.
She feels the thrill of excitement – her skin tingles with the power of the laser, magnified by the glass house; the hairs on her arms stand up and she can’t help but smile.
Is it working? There’s the smell of electricity in the room, and a sound of crackling, underpinned by a thrumming hum. It must be working – she knew it would. She was right all along.
She hopes Rosy’s all right in the glass house, and that it’s not too warm. She should check on her.
Thea shields her eyes with her arm, peering towards the glass house where, inside, Rosy should be standing – is she there. It’s too bright to see. Thea moves gingerly towards the cubicle, protecting herself from the light, when –
‘Fuck!’
A blinding colourless brightness, then the power goes out with a womp as the lab falls into total darkness.
‘Oh, hell.’
They stand at the centre of it all, surrounded by the black.
‘I think we did something bad.’
The Light Between Us by Katie Khan
I love a novel that leaves my mind full of images at the end. This story has certainly stayed with me and the vividness, light and emotion along with it. Katie has the ability to capture the magic, wonder and fragility that encompasses love. As always there is an element of heartbreak, light and darkness but I absolutely love the way Katie ends her novels. This one was particularly memorable and as with Hold Back The Stars, I can see The Light Between Us coming to film or tv.
Katie is an exciting, intelligent author and I have loved both of her novels so far. I can’t wait to see what comes next.
Thank you so much to Hannah Bright for sending me a copy of The Light Between Us,it was an absolute joy to read.
Also by Katie Khan…
Hold Back The Stars
Ninety minutes.
A few years from now, not too far in the future, two people meet.
It is a classic story of boy meets girl.
Except that it’s not.
When we find them, they have an hour and a half left.
Unless they can save themselves, they won’t survive.
The clock is ticking.
Bittersweet and life-affirming, Hold Back the Stars is the love story of the year.
Beautifully written, this stunning, unusual debut weaves its way through an intense, all-encompassing first love. A love forbidden by the times in which they live and yet one that they’ll risk everything not to lose.
Hold Back the Starsis set in a future where the world has been ravaged by war and a new society introduced. The earth is now peaceful but this comes at a price. There are rules and one of the rules is that you don’t fall in love until you reach the appropriate age. Yet the heart rarely follows rules and when Carys and Max meet its ten years before either should be thinking of settling down. They are young, rebellious and maybe the system no longer works for their generation.
Throughout the novel Carys and Max are desperately trying to find a way to survive after their ship is damaged and they are stranded in space and rapidly running out of both air and options. I loved discovering their relationship as Khan dips in and out of their past moving us towards the moment that brought them to be being in space and the catastrophic situation they find themselves in. It is intense and Khan conjures up the sheer vastness of space and their desperation as they watch the minute’s tick away taking them closer to death. Yes this is a novel about survival but ultimately it is a unique love story about how true love can turn our world upside down and also, maybe it can be the very thing that saves us too.
Katie Khan
I write books about light and space.”
To find out more about Katie you can visit her website here.
The Vigilantes behind him are nothing compared to the enemy within.
Having forfeited his youth to the state prison system, Michael moved back to the still vacant house of his parents in a town with one stoplight. A town that hated him. Had always hated him. And was ready to pick up where the prison system had left off.
Now he’s on the run from men who’ve tried to kill him once; but Michael is more than an ex-con. A powerful, sinister force skulks within him, threatening and destructive. What – and who – it will destroy next is the only real question.
From the bold voice that brought readers down with ‘Purgatory Road’ comes a new pulse-pounding, spine-rattling tale of vengeance and justice.
There is something rather delicious about a good thriller. The kind of thriller that sweeps you up in the story, pushing you on to the next chapter, making you turn page after thrilling page. With Coldwater Samuel Parker has created such a story. From the first page this was absolutely gripping. I was completely enthralled.
THE DAY WAS BORN IN DARKNESS
Michael opened his eyes and saw nothing.
Blackness.
The motes in his eyes drifted across the void.
His mouth was sealed with what felt like tape. Michael tried to lift himself and felt the hard knock of wood against his forehead. A light sprinkle of sand fell on his face, but he was blind to its source, he could only feel it as it dusted his lashes, scratching at his pupils. He raised his head slowly again until he felt the board press against his skin. He lay back down. His shoulders ached, his back. He tried to move his hands up to his eyes to rub the grit out of them but found they were bound together. He stated breathing faster, nostrils flaring in the dark.
He was as a newborn cast out into the vacuum of space. He could feel his heart beat faster as his mind raced to keep up with this discovery of himself. Michael could feel his nerves begin to fire in all his limbs as electric panic coursed through his body. He lifted his head again and hit the boards, a few inches above him.
And so it begins…
There is a sinister force running throughout this novel and there were many times that I questioned who was actually the monster. The level of hate towards Michael, a man who had served his time in prison, a prison in which he had been sent to as child and emerged a man. Yet we would be led to believe that he is evil, damaged and a danger to all those he comes in contact with. Even Michael himself who longs only to be accepted, to be left alone, knows that he will never be able to live a normal life. And yet he wants to live. He still has hope. So he runs from his pursuers, the vigilantes who have taken it upon themselves to rid their small town of this man who they believe does not deserve a second chance. Yet their very actions bring them closer to becoming the monster they are trying to destroy.
Michael is an incredibly complex character. He has so much going against him and although his crime was heinous, I did begin to feel a certain amount of empathy towards him. This novel is a wonderful metaphor for the effects of crime on those who commit it, their victims and anyone who has to deal with the aftermath. Once Michael committed the fateful act, the evil awoke within him and infiltrated everyone and everything he came into contact with.
It gave me much to think about but in essence this is a wonderful novel that was thrilling to read. I’m so delighted to have discovered Samuel Parker and I look forward to reading more from this exciting author.
Thank you so much to Rhoda Hardie for the review copy – you said I would love it and I absolutely did!
You can purchase a copy of Coldwater from Amazon. or any good bookshop. The ISBN number for the paperback edition is: 978-0800727345 but it is also available in Hardback and on eBook.
Coldwater was published by Revell part of the Baker Publishing Group.
If you’d like to read more about Samuel Parker then please do visit his website here.
Sarah Hilary is my author of the month, her DI Marnie Rome crime series from Headline Publishing is one of my favourites, and I get way too excited when I know the next book is due. Her series starts with Someone Else’s Skin, which simply blew me away. It won the Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year in 2015, and is followed by No Other Darkness, Tastes Like Fear, Quieter Than Killing, and her latest Come and Find Me which for me is quite possibly, her best yet.
I recently saw Sarah talking at ‘Cream of Crime’ held at the Steyning Festival, she chatted alongside Erin Kelly, Mark Billingham, and William Shaw. It was a fabulous evening and gave me a real insight into the way Sarah writes and thinks about her books. Sarah said that she particularly enjoys writing about the psychology of a crime, she really doesn’t want to write about good and bad, and questions who the monster really is. To write about darkness you also need light, and she doesn’t ever want to feel numb about what she is writing about. Sarah doesn’t like to plan, she just jumps off and starts to write, letting the plot surprise her. She has a friend who keeps a spreadsheet detailing every character in her books so she doesn’t get lost, as her fear is writing herself into a corner.
Sarah Hilary talking at Steyning Festival’s ‘Cream of Crime’.
Liz –What is your first book memory, is it a happy one, does it have any reflection on, or link to what you write today? What were your childhood must reads.
Sarah –My first is a very happy memory: my grandmother reading a book called ‘Helen’s Babies’ to me and my siblings as we rolled around with laughter. We were a great family for books. All my earliest reads were recommended by my mother who introduced me to Georgette Heyer, Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allan Poe and Mary Stewart. As a small child, I love the Faraway Tree and Malory Towers by Enid Blyton, but also the Greek myths and short stories by Eleanor Farjeon some of which have really disturbing themes. I loved being scared by stories, even then.
Liz –For how long were Marnie, Noah, and Stephen in your mind before they escaped onto the page? In which order did they appear and did they exist first or the story?
Sarah –Marnie had a walk-on part in an earlier story where I needed a detective. The first time she appeared she was undercover in biker boots and a punk wig, which I’ve always thought oddly appropriate. In fact, that might be why I gave her such a spiky vibe, and the backstory about her teenage years as a rebel. Noah came much later, and made a far calmer entrance. There’s a solidity and a happiness to Noah which readers love (and I love, too). Stephen was the last to appear. He likes to stay in the shadows, as you might expect for a double murderer who’s keeping terrible secrets.
Liz –I’m rather taken with Stephen as a character, what is it like to have Stephen prowling around in your mind, how often does he knock at the door of your consciousness and how does he speak to you?
Sarah –Stephen is one of my favourite characters to write, although it’s really all about the tension in the scenes between him and Marnie. Stephen doesn’t speak to me much, but he has a habit of standing at my shoulder as I write, or else watching me with his dark eyes from across the room. I find him quite frightening, but I do love writing (and reading) these very dark characters.
Liz –I love your integrity on social media, if something riles you, do you wait, strategise, or launch straight in?
Sarah –Oh blimey ..! Sometimes I don’t wait, although I always try to because it never helps to just add fuel to a fight. There’s an awful lot of bullying and bigotry online. I cannot bear bullies so I find it hard to ignore that sort of thing. It’s becoming harder and harder to be on social media, though. Trump and Brexit have both had the effect of giving nasty people a sense of validation – I’m constantly staggered by the malice and ignorance I see online.
Liz –Who would have the best social media presence and why… Marnie, Noah, or Stephen?
Sarah –Noah, for sure. He would post pics of him and Dan dancing, plus Jamaican recipes and sunny words of wisdom. I don’t think Marnie would go near social media. As for Stephen, can you imagine his Twitter account? “Mood: murderous”. Maybe an Instagram account with photoshopped pictures of him and Marnie as siblings …
Liz –Is there a question you’ve never been asked and wish you had?
Sarah –I love to be asked who I think the real monsters are in my books. Stephen is many things, but I don’t think of him as a monster. There’s a woman in ‘Someone Else’s Skin’ who works in a refuge. She’s one of the worst monsters I’ve ever written.
Liz – Thank you Sarah, fabulous answers – and just to let you know, I now really want to see Stephen’s instagram account!
Sarah can be found on twitter as @sarah_hilaryshe has a strong social media presence, and is wonderfully approachable.
Come and Find Mewas published in hardback and eBook on the 22nd of March and will be published in paperback on the 4th of October 2018.
Book six in the series, Never Be Broken, is due to be published in May 2019 and so now is the perfect time to discover this fantastic author if you haven’t done so already.
I recently attended the Fowey Festival of Art and Literature, as I waltzed down to the marquee where Veronica Henry was due to chat to Harriet Evans, the view stopped me in my tracks, simply gorgeous, could there be a better setting?
As a light breeze wafted in from the sea, Veronica introduced us and hosted the chat beautifully. Harriet had wanted to share the stage, to chat about both their books (A Family Recipe and The Wildflowers), but no said Veronica, this was about Harriet, and Veronica asked some searching and fascinating questions. Harriet worked in publishing (was Veronica’s editor) before she decided to write, her career nearly floundered when a faulty hard drive decided to destroy her first 30,000 words, yet she continued, and says that having to rewrite took the book to a better place.
Harriet believes that every book can be summed up in one line, that a central plait should sit through the novel, and that books need soul, to sit and be mellow, that a book takes time to mature. She can forensically pick apart her books, and is more than happy for an editor to be involved, her past experience as an editor enables her to join in the process rather than hinder it.
Veronica Henry with Harriet Evans at the Fowey Festival of Arts and Literature
Harriet spoke about the inspiration for her latest book The Wildflowers, she was on a beach in Dorset playing in the waves with her then three year old and wanted the perfect summer, a host of golden moments for her children to remember. She decided to write about the ideal holiday home, a pop-up book of ideas and photos grew until The Wildflowers was born. She adores the cover, the colours, the cushion on the seat inviting you to sit on the veranda…
Tony and Althea Wilde. Glamorous, argumentative … adulterous to the core.
They were my parents, actors known by everyone. They gave our lives love and colour in a house by the sea – the house that sheltered my orphaned father when he was a boy.
But the summer Mads arrived changed everything. She too had been abandoned and my father understood why. We Wildflowers took her in.
My father was my hero, he gave us a golden childhood, but the past was always going to catch up with him … it comes for us all, sooner or later.
This is my story. I am Cordelia Wilde. A singer without a voice. A daughter without a father. Let me take you inside.
And finally here is my review for The Wildflowers by Harriet Evans
The Bosky, a wonderful seaside holiday home sits centre stage in this story, comforting, embracing, helping you move from the Second World War through to 2015. We get to know, to care about, to love the Wilde’s, the sophisticated Tony and Althea and their offspring, their treasured and traumatic memories, what makes them tick, their secrets, their lies. This is a story that feels hugely worldly-wise yet also so very intimate, it travels through time, and takes you to the heart of emotions. Harriet Evans made every character matter to me, she covers the generations, from youngest to oldest beautifully, they also feel so very real, everyone is perfectly imperfect. As the story wrapped itself around me, I became consumed by each time span, only coming up for breath with each break in time, which in turn led to a new discovery. The Bothy travels with the Wilde’s, becoming as one with their story. I adored ‘The Wildflowers”, bittersweet, knowing, eloquently engaging and so very very satisfying… what a truly rewarding read this is.
Liz Robinson
The Wildflowers by Harriet Evans was published by Headline in April 2018.
Find out more about Harriet Evans by visiting her website here.
Thomas de Quincey, author of ‘Confessions of an English Opium-Eater’
Some years ago I came across Thomas de Quincey, author of Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. It was a fleeting moment within my studies but he has lingered somewhere in the depths of my mind and I thought that one day I would like to discover a little more about the man who not only shared such an intimate and scandalous memoir but was also friends with William Wordsworth. I was therefore greatly delighted when Holland House publishers sent me a novel by the name of The Alphabet of Heart’s Desire by Brian Keany.
This is a novel born from true events in de Quincey’s life but it is a gloriously imagined work of fiction. When de Quincey was only 17 years old he ran away from his family and their expectations of what his future should be and spent some time in London. In Confessions of an English Opium-Eater de Quincey recounts how he met a young street girl (Ann of Oxford Street) and it was this passage that lit the spark for Keaney’s novel. I must say I thought the novel rather wonderful and it has reignited my desire to explore de Quincey further.
‘I am nobody of consequence,’ the stanger replies. ‘I am only here to give you this.’ He holds out his hand and in his open palm there nestles a small silver locket upon a chain. ‘She asked me to return it to you, at the very end.’
A visitor calls with a gift and a message from the past…
In 1802 Thomas de Quincey, a young man from a comfortable middle-class background who would go on to become one of the most celebrated writers of his day, collapsed on Oxford Street and was discovered by a teenage prostitute who brought him back to her room and nursed him to health. It was the beginning of a relationship that would introduce Thomas to a world just below the surface of London’s polite society, where pleasure was a tradeable commodity and opium could seem the only relief from poverty. Yet it is also a world where love might blossom, and goodness survive.
The lives of a street girl, an aspiring writer, and a freed slave cross and re-cross the slums of London in this novel about the birth of passion, the burden of addiction, and the consolations of literature.
A young man taken far away from everything and everyone he has ever known and sold to the highest bidder; a young girl living in squalor, who chooses to run away to a brothel rather than endure the abuse of her mother’s lover; and a young man desperate to find his own path and not be bullied into a life without passion or creativity. Through the lives of each of these characters we are taken back through the mist and fog to early 19th century London. A London where death came early to many through illness or violence. This is a richly woven story with some wonderful characters. It is incredibly vivid and beautifully written and I felt it a celebration of the written word not only in the way Brian Keaney shares the story with us, but as an underlying theme that runs through the novel.
He lived extremely frugally, spending nothing on his own attire or his appearance beyond what was necessary to preserve a degree of respectability, or on furnishings for the house or shop. Reading was his sole recreation. He brought books and he read them. In time, I came to appreciate the wisdom of this way of living, and to make it my own. Between us we sought to work our way through the great pile of books that littered the upstairs of the house. But we never came anywhere near exhausting the volumes in Archie’s makeshift library for their number was always growing.
The novel is incredibly dark at times and I can fully understand why these characters would need the written word to escape their reality. Harsh and unkind as it quite often was, yet amongst the darkness there was kindness, hope and love. Something that can be difficult to see in times of hardship. The London that Keaney brings to us is corrupt and filled with crime and selfishness. It brings to mind Wordsworth’s sonnet London, 1802 in which he laments the capital and how it has lost its way.
Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
An excerpt from London, 1802 by William Wordsworth
I feel that Keaney has captured the tone of the city at this time. The despair and darkness that many lived with and the effects of drug addiction. A thought provoking, interesting novel and one that I thoroughly recommend.
This is the first time I have read anything by Brian Keaney although he had written many books for children, YA and The Alphabet of Heart’s Desire is his first book for adults. I very much look forward to reading more from him in the future.
You can find out more about Brian Keaney by visiting his website here.
The Alphabet of Heart’s Desire was published by Holland House Books in November 2017.
Thank you so much to Holland House Books for sending me a review copy of The Alphabet of Heart’s Desire.
I’m so thrilled to be hosting today’s stop on the blog tour for The Cliff House by Amanda Jennings.
Synopsis
Some friendships are made to be broken
Cornwall, summer of 1986.
The Davenports, with their fast cars and glamorous clothes, living the dream in a breathtaking house overlooking the sea.
If only… thinks sixteen-year-old Tamsyn, her binoculars trained on the perfect family in their perfect home.
If only her life was as perfect as theirs.
If only Edie Davenport would be her friend.
If only she lived at The Cliff House…
Amanda Jennings weaves a haunting tale of obsession, loss and longing, set against the brooding North Cornish coastline, destined to stay with readers long after the final page is turned.
You sit and watch them from the same place you always do.
I spy.
With my little eye.
The opening lines to this thrilling novel are sinister and full of meaning. The prologue setting the tone of the book from the get go. I read this in two days straight. I loved it. It held my interest and sparked a need in me to find out what happened and who indeed would become the victim in the end. I could feel it coming. The sense of foreboding that ran through the novel like a stream rushing towards the ultimate deluge when all was revealed.
The characterisation was fantastic. The different view points gave an interesting perspective on proceedings never quite allowing me to work out who I should feel sorry for, who was the victim and who was really injecting the posion that threaded its way through the story. I have my theory now but not wishing to spoil the story for you I’ll keep my thoughts to myself. Do message me though if you’d like to know.
The characters are complex, all damaged in their own way. This novel has so many layers. It looks deeply at how past experiences can taint our actions and lives forever but it also looks at how memories are never quite true but heavily influenced by who owns it. The same experience is never equally remembered by two different people and time has the power to change and alter events so that the reality can become grotesque and unbelievable in our self editing minds. We remember what we chose to remember from our own view point.
So what is the story about? The central character for me, is the house itself. Echoing faintly of Daphne DuMaurier’s Rebecca, The Cliff House not only takes the title but also takes centre stage. It seems to have a life of it’s own and possesses people in an unnatural way that makes them either love or hate it. Jennings has done a wonderful job of creating the atmosphere, providing the contrast of a hot summer in 1986 and the cold, sinister evil that seems to catch hold of both the occupants and visitors of The Cliff House.
As you read you know that things are going to go horribly wrong but you can’t quite work out what or who it will happen to. It was a thrilling read and one that lingers in my mind. I can almost hear the soft lapping of the water as Tamsyn swims through the still, dark water or the ‘caw’ of the raven.
Tamsyn has never recovered from the death of her father six years ago. The whole family have been suspended in their grief, doing all they can do to survive but never quite living. She takes solace in stolen visits to the house she and her father adored from afar when he was alive. The house they crept into to swim in the pool on the day he died. For Tamsyn there was always a part of her father still at the house and there wasn’t anywhere in the world she’d rather be. One day she sneaks back into the house only to be surprised by the early return of the owner and she soon becomes a part of the lives she has spent so long watching and idolising. And so begins a story of obsession and jealousy that can only lead to catastropy.
Amanda Jennings has a beautiful way with words. Her descriptive prose is stunning as she gets to the heart of the way her characters are feeling and sets each scene perfectly.
I turned my attention back to them all as they danced and screeched and smoked and drank. I was mesmerised by it all and relieved I’d stayed and not run back to St Just. This world was Wonderland and I was Alice. The characters around me were as weird and wonderful as the Queen of Hearts and the smoking Caterpillar and the Cheshire Cat’s floating smile. I thought of my father, hear the voices he used when he read me that story. Saw his face twisted into the manic grin of the Mad Hatter as he poured tea on the Dormouse. As I watched them they seemed to grow more fantastical. Their clothes brighter and more outlandish. I watched them pop whole eggs into their mouths, the eggs so tiny it gave the illusion they were giants.
Tamsyn longs to be part of the life at The Cliff House. She longs to run away from the pain and frustration of her family, a family left splintered by the death of her father.
He drags his feet up the stairs. He can never be the man he knows he should be. A man his father would be proud to call his son. While his mother worries about red-topped bills and food in their bellies, what does he do? Kicks around feeling sorry for himself. Moans about unemployment and the government and Tory wankers who live up their own arses. He smokes weed he can’t afford. Apathy is his constant companion, his Peter Pan shadow, sewn to his heels so he can never escape. It’s like he’s slipped into a waking coma. He is numb.
Just wonderful. I especially loved the line ‘Apathy is his constant companion, his Peter Pan shadow, sewn to his heels so he can never escape’
This was a thrilling, exciting read and one that I would thoroughly recommend.
The Cliff Houseis published by HQ, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd in Hardback on the 17th of May 2018.
You can find out more about author Amanda Jennings here.
This is a novel born from true events in de Quincey’s life but it is a gloriously imagined work of fiction. When de Quincey was only 17 years old he ran away from his family and their expectations of what his future should be and spent some time in London. In Confessions of an English Opium-Eater de Quincey recounts how he met a young street girl (Ann of Oxford Street) and it was this passage that lit the spark for Keaney’s novel. I must say I thought the novel rather wonderful and it has reignited my desire to explore de Quincey further.
Tales Before Bedtime 